1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an article conveyor system which is capable of confirming if a conveyance article has been accurately positioned with respect to a workpiece during a conveyance process for conveying the conveyance article toward the workpiece.
2. Description of the Related Art
Article conveyor systems which convey various conveyance articles toward a workpiece have been known from the past. Further, in recent years, article conveyor systems with visual sensors which can visually detect the positions of a conveyance article and workpiece have been spreading. For example, JP2005-11580A proposes a robot system which conveys a conveyance article toward a workpiece, using position information which has been acquired by a visual sensor. More specifically, in the robot system which is described in JP2005-11580A, a visual sensor which is attached to the second hand acquires position information of a cable with a connector which is gripped by the first hand as well as position information of an opposing connector which is placed on a table. The first hand then conveys the cable with the connector toward the opposing connector, using the position information which has been acquired by the visual sensor. In this way, a conveyance article (i.e., cable with a connector) is assembled into a workpiece (i.e., opposing connector).
However, even if a visual sensor is used to acquire accurate position information, a certain extent of conveyance error will unavoidably occur during the conveyance process by the robot in the case where the operational precision of the robot is insufficient. That is, even if a visual sensor is used to acquire accurate position information, it is not possible to guarantee the positioning precision of the conveyance article with respect to the workpiece. Further, in the robot system which is described in JP2005-11580A, in order to confirm if the conveyance article has been accurately positioned with respect to the workpiece, the visual sensor attached to the second hand has to be moved close to the conveyance article and workpiece, and then the visual sensor has to acquire an image including both the conveyance article and workpiece. In this way, in a conventional article conveyor system, a large amount of man hours were required for confirming if a conveyance article has been accurately positioned with respect to a workpiece.
An article conveyor system which is capable of confirming if a conveyance article has been accurately positioned with respect to a workpiece during a conveyance process for conveying the conveyance article toward the workpiece has therefore been sought.